Through the smog of our making: Journey back from Nijhum Dwip

on our way back from Nijhum Dwip, we enjoyed a great sunrise in a misty river setting...... but the more we got closer to the Capital City, the more we got the touch of industrial noise...... the fog got mixed with the pollutants and presented in front of us as "smog"..... the industrial units on the riverbank reminded us of our responsibilities towards the environment......

eclipsed future..........

it is us who choked ourselves; and it is us to blinded ourselves........ and it is us who eclipsed our future...... did we ever think what we were leaving behind for our followers??

Taken in the River Dhaleswari at Narayanganj, Bangladesh on the way back from a Safari Tour organised by "Through the Lens: Bangladesh" (TTL) group of Flickr; 01 November 2009

Through the forest, towards Chuakhali, Nijhum Dwip........

at last I had been able to do something with the glimpses from Nijhum Dwip tour...... although I'm yet to be able to even start the Nijhum Dwip travel blog....... but I do hope to gradually share some experiences from this memorable tour......

on our second day at Nijhum Dwip, we were going to Chuakhali, the southernmost part of Nijhum Dwip.... during the last part of the one-and-a-half hour's walk, we were going through the mangrove forest in the fading late afternoon light..... we had the opportunity to meet and talk to some hard-working children...... their faces could tell a lot about the hard life on the remote island......



Shahnoori is a typical child on the remote island of Nijhum Dwip....... her shabby clothes grossly show off her family's economic condition, but her smile portrays her dreams, and constantly reminds us what keeps them alive......

Really struggling with busy schedules........

it had been some time since I've come back from Nijhum Dwip...... I've managed to have so little time since then, that it has become virtually impossible for me to anything timely...... the images from the TTL Nijhum Dwip Safari had been edited, but they still haven't found their home online...... so far I've only been able to share some activity pictures from the tour...... work on the travel blog hasn't even started yet.....

but this all hasn't been that bad..... I've had a nice event within this time..... the TTL Studiowalk was a huge refreshment...... I had completed all the work from the Studiowalk within one night..... if I failed to keep that time, it would've added to my backlog..... I still haven't been able to write a word on my last trip to Sundarbans..... its a real pity, since that tour was my longest trip to that area..... anyway, lets see that there for me in the coming days.....

First TTL "Studiowalk", Dhaka, November 2009

actually it required some real effort to make it happen..... after going through some busy schedules, at last we were able to assign some time for it..... Bijuman takes full credit for this meet..... he propsed the original "Studiowalk" at his place..... and the liberty of using his place, where a whole floor was empty of anything, was a big convenience..... great support and enthusiasm came up from the four initial participants, Bijumna, Atia and Shawon, along with me....... Gazi Bhai joined later to give more impetus...... thanks to all of them to make this a success!!

it was a bright sunny day..... and the empty rooms at Biju's place were washed with light..... late morning hours produced enough light to give our thinking a specific direction...... we started with available light.... we used the great big windows as softboxes.... and the light wrapped around the subject pretty nicely..... we also used ambient lights through windows to give some efects......






then we started to think crazy...... the first thing that came to our mind was to overpower the sun..... because the sun was too strong to think in any other direction..... high-speed sync (Auto FP in Nikon) was the result...... we used a single flash light with snoot to illuminate the subject's face, grossly underexposing the bright window in the back..... our idea was to make it look like a late afternoon shot......



setup......


next, we decided to use an empty white wall as the backdrop.... light was falling on the wall from one direction...... but it wasn't really strong..... we opened up a door on one side, which gave stronger light from the opposite direction.... but that light wasn't strong enough to really overpower light from the other direction.... so, we set up a flash with an umbrella beyond the door to give a soft, but natural-looking light on the subject...... I didn't really take any shots here, because I was adding some fill-light on the subject from below using a small reflector..... others took shots of this setting......

the next setting took place at Biju's second floor living quarters..... we had a nice setting in the cozy living room..... we subdued the light coming through the big window with a thick curtain, which allowed us to control light at our own will..... we setup a single flash on a stand and added a snoot..... somehow, light spilled from the snoot on the wall gave the setting a more interesting look...... so, we kept that same light setting.....



setup........



we then setup another flash a minimum power behind the couch to eliminate shadows created by the snoot.....





setup...........


the next setup was again a high-speed sync setup.... we tried to make some "kewl" portraits using a darkish setting..... we used two flashes at full power, one from below with snoot and the other from top behind as hair light...... the hair light, for some reason, didn't give expected support..... anyway, the outputs looked "kewl" enough for us......





setup.........


the next setup was for a high-key lighting...... the idea was to illuminate the background with a flash and to give nice even light from two sides on the subject using shoot-though umbrellas....... we used a higher vantage point to give more emphasis on the subject's eyes.....





setup.........


then we had the crazy idea about capturing motion...... we created action and setup two flashes, one with an umbrealla as the main light and the other as background light...... the outputs were interesting......



setup.........


the last setup was for a "kewl" group portrait...... the idea was to make all the flashes pop with the shutter..... somehow, it didn't go as smoothly as we had wanted.... but it was interesting for sure.......

The Koba Squad!!



can't wait for the next round.......:)